To see this optical illusion in it’s full capacity, wait for the animated .gif to loop to its start. You’ll know you’re there when you see a full colored rainbow appear. Now stare at the center dot for few seconds, and at one time the animation will switch. But don’t move your eyes from central dot just yet! What do you see? If you followed my procedure precisely, sooner or later you’ll find out that the animation below consists of two similar images. Only difference between them, is that one is in color, and the other is black and white. After staring at the color rainbow’s central dot, negative colors burnt in your retina, and you were able to see the black and white photo in full color!

Contrast Wave Optical Illusion

I’ve posted an interesting animation below, one that loops indefinitely between two simmilar pictures. Before you start, I’d like you to wait few seconds before the animation loops to it’s start. You’ll know it when you see left image blurred, and the right one in high contrast.

Ok, once you’re set gaze for a few seconds at the fixation cross in the center of the two neighboring images. After 10 seconds two new halves will appear, and I want you to judge the contrast of these halves.

What did just happen? At first, the difference between two halves was more than obvious – one was blurry, and the other one sharp. After the change, on the left part you initially perceived high contrast, and on the right noticeably less contrast. The right one became somehow darker, am I right? This effect persists only for a few seconds. After a while (moving your eyes around the picture should help) it becomes apparent that the 2 new halves are both identical. All of this has something to do with Contrast adaptation and Contrast gain control, but let’s leave this to someone more qualified – I’m sure there are many of you out there smarter than me. Don’t hesitate to share your explanation!

Concentrate, and watch the blue vapor disappear

Even though visually simple, I promise you that the optical illusion effect this picture holds – is more than great!  Before we start, I’d like to point that the Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularized by Lewis Carroll’s depiction of it in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat has had a notable impact on popular culture, where its grin is reminiscent of the vagaries of a trickster.

Now here’s what I’d like you to do: hold your head in a perfectly still position, and then concentrate on the cat’s nose. Try looking at it for as long as you can, and after a minute or so, you’ll notice that the blue vapor has completely disappeared. Not only that, you’ll continue seeing cat’s outline, but after some additional time – complete cat should disappear! How strange is that? If you remember, back in the old days we posted few simmilar illusions to our “Color Adapting” category. You might want to check them first! Now I’m off to write another illusory post, so you have something to chew-on over the weekend.

But let’s get back to illusions for now… I found this one on The Instructables. There you can find some instructions how to DIY this illusion yourself. Basically, it involves four different shades of blue that border each other. When viewed from left to right, the shades go from lightest to darkest. The illusion comes into play when an object is placed along the borders of each successive shade. Something strange occurs with our perception of the obvious difference in shades – neighboring shades appear to be precisely the same! Jump inside this article, to see the original pattern.

Now remove those pesky pencils away from the bluish pattern. How many colors do you see? I can assure you that both patterns are exactly the same! There is a video on YouTube called “Shady Optical Illusion” that shows you the effect in reverse. Be sure to check it out!

UPDATE: Check out the video below, recently uploaded on YouTube. This guy showed how this illusion works in real life:

The benefits of taking a broader approach to problem solving can be seen everywhere, even in something as seemingly arbitrary as games of chance, best casino games, or online gaming in general. I just wanted to reference back to our recent topic about gambling… Pause for a second and consider exactly what’s motivating you. Word of advice: if you’re trying to make extra money by playing online poker but failing, maybe being a successful poker player simply isn’t in the cards for you. Instead of abandoning the game and all you’ve learned, though, perhaps you can make your millions instead by writing a screenplay about poker (such as Rounders), or by getting a job as a programmer for an online poker site, if you have skills such as creative writing or computer programming. Instead of getting locked into thinking that there’s only one possible solution to your problem, step back and consider all the angles, and open yourself up to all the possibilities that might present themselves to you. Take care, and be responsible!

Check the animation below, or simply click this image

Here’s an interesting approach to original Lilac Chaser illusion, invented many years ago… Wait for the animation to load, and concentrate on the center dot for a minute or so. Normally the skulls are disappearing in a clock-wise direction, but if you manage to stay still and concentrated, you will experience an afterimage of the rotating skull in places (where there shouldn’t be any). Hope you understood all this babling.

Originally I got this optical illusion from here, and have to admit: I was forced to crop the above and below embedded letters. Sorry dear fellow webmaster, hope you don’t take it against me – it’s just that the letters were too big and spammy for the illusion to be useful anywhere elsewhere than on its original website.

Apart from all this, check our newest optical illusion below! If you stare at the fly sitting in the center of the yellow-blue pattern on the right for a minute or so, and then switch your view onto the fly on your left – you’ll experience one interesting effect! Normally the cow photo looks divided into two different colored surfaces, but if you follow the previously mentioned procedure correctly – the cow photo fill appear perfectly normal. Yes, its similar to our prehistoric colored baby and hydroplane illusions! Please don’t forget to comment how the widgets behave at your end!